After 'Falcon Crest', Susan Sullivan said, "I would get up in the morning, and the good news was that I got to create my life. The bad news was that I got to create my life. That’s when I realized you have to develop other parts of your life." In 1999, "If someone had told me in my 30s that things would be so fabulous for me in my 50s, I never would have believed them. I couldn’t be happier."
"The one TV show I really liked was 'thirtysomething,'" Darren Star confessed. Between 1995 and 1996, Darren developed 'Central Park West' for television. "'Melrose Place' for me, was really about that time after college when you’re trying to establish yourself and your life and your identity and become an adult," he made the comment. "This show is about characters who are already successful in their lives, and are really part of a sophisticated New York."
"I think that television is pretty much where it's at right now," Raquel Welch made the observation in 1996. "I think that when you're starting out in your career, you certainly do believe that it's going to be a bit different than it actually is....For most artists the performers, writers and even the directors the thing that really draws them to the business is the process; they think they're going to be involved in a creative thing, and they will be immersed in that, and it will be something that will carry them through all the hardships, because they want to see a great product in the end."
"My shows may follow the conventions of melodrama, but I'm not a student of the genre," Darren disclosed. "I really start by creating a group of characters. I never write a bible. I could never be that far ahead of myself. I never know where things are going to go. Not that I would think of comparing myself to him, but Dickens wrote weekly installments of his books way."
"(In 1985) teenage-oriented movies were the rage and that's all I was writing," Darren recalled. "I really liked John Hughes' 'Breakfast Club'. He could get into the heads of his characters. I knew being a teenager was one experience I could draw from with credibility. When I was 24, I didn't know what it was like to be 30, but I knew pretty well what teenagers were about."
"Ultimately I write to entertain," Darren maintained. "I supervise all the writing so that it comes out as a whole piece. I plan out every deed of every story. When it doesn't work, it's miserable. Like the beginning of 'Melrose Place.' I couldn't find the show for a while; it was rushed into production and it didn't meet my vision. Often the actor inspires me to take things in a different direction. Like when we cast Heather Locklear in 'Melrose Place,' she was only going to be in 3 episodes. With the little I gave her, she showed me all sorts of possibilities. I thought, 'Let's give her some more.'"
